The Internet has grown to become an important outlet of electronic communication. Tools such as email and instant messaging (IM; sometimes also referred to as “chat”) are popular amongst Internet users. IM, in particular, has become quite popular, both as a personal communications tool and a an emerging tool for business collaboration.
Transcripts of chat messages are often saved for future review. However, chat transcripts as they appear today often are not formatted for readability and are cluttered with too much information. A chat transcript often includes to-the-second timestamps displayed for all messages in the transcript. Also, the timestamps are often displayed in the line of the message, distracting the user from the substance of the message. A more user-friendly display of chat transcripts is therefore needed.